Graham Higman FRS (19 January 1917 – 8 April 2008) was a prominent English

mathematician A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, mathematical structure, structure, space, Mathematica ...

known for his contributions to

group theory In abstract algebra, group theory studies the algebraic structures known as group (mathematics), groups. The concept of a group is central to abstract algebra: other well-known algebraic structures, such as ring (mathematics), rings, field ( ...

Biography

Higman was born in

Louth, Lincolnshire Louth () is a market town and Civil parishes in England, civil parish in the East Lindsey district of Lincolnshire, England.OS Explorer map 283:Louth and Mablethorpe: (1:25 000): Louth serves as an important town for a large rural area of east ...

, and attended Sutton High School, Plymouth, winning a scholarship to

Balliol College, Oxford Balliol College () is a constituent college of the University of Oxford. Founded in 1263 by nobleman John I de Balliol, it has a claim to be the oldest college in Oxford and the English-speaking world. With a governing body of a master and aro ...

. In 1939 he co-founded The Invariant Society, the student mathematics society, and earned his DPhil from the

University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the List of oldest un ...

in 1941. His thesis, ''The units of group-rings'', was written under the direction of J. H. C. Whitehead. From 1960 to 1984 he was the Waynflete Professor of Pure Mathematics at

Magdalen College, Oxford Magdalen College ( ) is a Colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent college of the University of Oxford. It was founded in 1458 by Bishop of Winchester William of Waynflete. It is one of the wealthiest Oxford colleges, as of 2022, and ...

. Higman was awarded the Senior Berwick Prize in 1962 and the De Morgan Medal of the

London Mathematical Society The London Mathematical Society (LMS) is one of the United Kingdom's Learned society, learned societies for mathematics (the others being the Royal Statistical Society (RSS), the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications (IMA), the Edinburgh ...

in 1974. He was the founder of the

Journal of Algebra ''Journal of Algebra'' (ISSN 0021-8693) is an international mathematical research journal in algebra. An imprint of Academic Press, it is published by Elsevier Elsevier ( ) is a Dutch academic publishing company specializing in scientific, te ...

and its editor from 1964 to 1984. Higman had 51 D.Phil. students, including Jonathan Lazare Alperin, Rosemary A. Bailey, Marston Conder, John Mackintosh Howie, and Peter M. Neumann. He was also a local preacher in the Oxford Circuit of the Methodist Church. During the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

he was a

conscientious objector A conscientious objector is an "individual who has claimed the right to refuse to perform military service" on the grounds of freedom of conscience or religion. The term has also been extended to objecting to working for the military–indu ...

, working at the Meteorological Office in

Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ; ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, part of the United Kingdom in the north-east of the island of Ireland. It has been #Descriptions, variously described as a country, province or region. Northern Ireland shares Repub ...

and

Gibraltar Gibraltar ( , ) is a British Overseas Territories, British Overseas Territory and British overseas cities, city located at the southern tip of the Iberian Peninsula, on the Bay of Gibraltar, near the exit of the Mediterranean Sea into the A ...

. He died in Oxford.

Publications

* * * Graham Higman (1966) ''Odd characterisations of finite simple groups'', U. of Michigan Press * * * Graham Higman and Elizabeth Scott (1988), ''Existentially closed groups'', LMS Monographs,

Clarendon Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the publishing house of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world. Its first book was printed in Oxford in 1478, with the Press officially granted the legal right to print books ...

, Oxford

Notes

References

*
Death notice, Oxford University Gazette, 17 April 2008

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Higman, Graham 1917 births 2008 deaths 20th-century English mathematicians 21st-century English mathematicians Group theorists Alumni of Balliol College, Oxford Fellows of Magdalen College, Oxford Fellows of the Royal Society People from Louth, Lincolnshire English conscientious objectors British Methodists Waynflete Professors of Pure Mathematics Presidents of the London Mathematical Society

Biography

Publications

See also

Notes

References

External links